| February 22, 2009
You are welcome to reflect on this message
I received a humorous email recently describing the safest places to be. Not your car, 20% fatalities. Homes aren’t safe, 13% fatalities are there. On the streets there are 14% pedestrian fatalities. Hospitals are worst of all: 33% fatalities occur where we go to get well! So stay away from hospitals. Statistically, the safest places are in the church. Fewer people die in church than anyplace else: .001%. And it’s usually from a pre-existing condition. But hopefully not boredom.
But the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church in Knoxville, TN wouldn’t agree that their place is safe. They recently held a memorial service in remembrance of the tragic murder of several innocent members by a wild man in the sanctuary with a shotgun. Any place that’s controversial isn’t safe. This is the fourth inner-city congregation I’ve served DC, Birmigham, and Portland OR are the other three. And they may be a lot of things, social ministry is big, but safe isn’t one of them. I speak from experience on this. I ya’ll only knew. Every week we come to church and part of our worship is giving; giving back something to God; to assist others. In worship we give of ourselves, our income, our prayers. Everybody knows that.
What you don’t know about are those many “drop ins,” who come to the church to get. Just last week I had another one of several threatening encounters with a street person. No matter how many locks, spot cams, precautions, alarm systems you install, people who want in will get in. And if you can’t give them what they ask for or tell them “no,” you’re taking a risk. We called the police on this guy, but as usual, it’s too late to do anything about it; other than warned us of what we all know: it’s gonna get worse.
So I’ve been thinking of our text this morning: “Be strong in the Lord...Put on the whole armor of God..taking the shield of faith...the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit...” This is the other side of Jesus’ “turn the other cheek, go the 2nd mile” ethic. Self-defense instead of self-sacrifice. Is there a place for it? People out there are desperate, and some turn mean when they don’t get their way. So I confess that this mixing of the martial with the gospel is precipitous. Some of the darkest days of church history occurred when Christians marched around with banners unfurled on crusades to make war holy. From the time of Christ to the fourthh century AD, the early Church wouldn’t mix the military with the Christian faith. In those early days, closest to the time of Jesus, Christians refused to serve in the military. But that changed after Constantine. In the heat of a fierce battle, he had a vision of the cross which read: “In this sign conquer.” And because he won, the world changed.
But the metaphors weren’t just mixed, they were sorely confused. It sets up a conflict because Jesus was the idealistic “Prince of Peace,” who died with the point of a sword in his side, but never took up the handle of one against anybody. Yet here is Christianity’s greatest proponent, in Ephesians 6, the feisty Apostle Paul, advocating self defense with weaponry images; advice that sounds more like an armory than the New Testament. These were the early years. There were shepherds and Saviors; martyrs but also the need for defenders of the faith. Or else it would’ve been absorbed in society. It was a time when people in the church believed some things are worth fighting for. Today Israel still lives by Moses’ “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” ethic. So when the Palestinians lob rockets into town, they hit back, only more so. That’s understandable.
So is St. Paul. When he pulled up this metaphor he was behind bars. We saw what that did to John the Baptist. It surely colors your outlook. It’s tough out there, so there’s a reason the Apostle encouraged the church at Ephesus to “put on the whole armor of God...for we’re not contending against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and the world rulers of this present darkness...so take up the whole armor of God...the breastplate of righteousness...the shield of faith...the sword of the Spirit.”
Is there anything worth fighting for today? I’ll admit, I’m not a pacifist. There are some things I’ll fight for. Myself. My family. My freedom. My faith. Is there anything in your world so germane to the way of Christ that you need to contend with all your might and then some to preserve it? That's what Paul was saying to the Church at Ephesus. This practical “ambassador in chains” was saying: if you plan to follow Jesus, you better get ready for a fight! You're gonna need to defend yourself against the opposition that’s sure to come.
It’s hard to believe that the gospel has enemies because I was raised in a small southern town where Christians had no competition. Enemies of the church? Heck, Baptists and Methodists were all there was; sprinkled in with a few Presbyterians and Church of Christ. The Baptists were in the majority and seemed secure, confident, and powerful – the Southland in the 1950's. My parents didn't have to worry about whether I would grow up Christian. It was the only game in town. Everything was closed on Sundays. No blue laws, though the movies opened after church let out. Everybody went to church. You could hardly find a parking place if you were late. It was the southern cultural thing to do. We went out to supper at Sticky Fingers in Chattanooga and the place was empty. I asked the waiter “Where is everybody?” “Oh this is Wednesday, they’re at prayer meeting!” Sounds foreign doesn’t it? Down there, the church still doesn’t have to bother itself too much with defensive maneuvers, because they’re in the majority.
But we’ve lost that today. There's a lot of doubt about whether our children will even become Christians, much less remain one, simply by drinking the water or breathing the air. If our kids grow into the faith it will be because somebody taught it to them. And if we would hold to and live out this faith, we will have to do it intentionally and with great care because sometime between 1950 and 2009 the world shifted. It is no longer “the norm” or “the in thing” to be Christian in America.
Our society is marching to the sound of a different drummer. Plenty of drums beating; at Waterfire; there’s the drumbeat of ethnic celebrations; back in the fall even the Buddhist Monks got to do their thing. Our city gets more excited about foot races than the worship of God. Though they do allow us to park on the streets on Sunday morning, when nothing else is going on. But you’ll get ticketed and towed on Monday! Our bell irritates the nearby-late-Saturday-night-sleepers, still hung-over from the “wrath of grapes” at the local bars.
All the crowds out there and the tiny number in here, doesn’t that say something about our values? Something Paul was talking about; who served God when the world was an inhospitable place for discipleship. His world recognized the subversive nature of the Christian faith but undercuts us by lack of interest. It’s become so prevalent, I devised a word for this new generation today. I call them “ignostics” who don't know what the church is talking about. They seem to like Jesus OK, but could care less about his church. So yeah, there’s a “war” upon the gospel in the most subtle of ways, that you don't even know you've lost the battle until it's too late.
But we shouldn’t overlook the point that Paul's armor does include a sword. But it’s mostly of a preventive nature – helmet, shield, breastplate – the armor needed for defense rather than attack. Still Paul warns, you’d better not go out unarmed. The world lives by a different philosophy, and speaks a different language than the church. So we keep gathering to “speak the truth in love,” that we might grow up in our faith and “be strong in the Lord,” to walk and not faint.” I know this much: weak, vacillating, now-and-then-faith is no match for the world. And being a Christian is too difficult a way to walk -- alone.
We need company! So stay near to your companions in arms, you’ll need a sword and shield, says the Apostle. Church is like “boot camp,” which is why we gather on a regular basis for worship, so we can speak about God in a world that lives as if there is no God. And pray for God’s provisional resources that we can never develop by our own efforts. One way of looking at it is, what we do on Sunday morning becomes...a matter of life and death, spiritually speaking, so "pray that I may preach the gospel with boldness" (Eph. 6:20).
Except for those churches that are randomly attacked with violence, most of us never contemplate suffering physical persecution that our original brothers and sisters endured. Few of us pay in blood for our faith around here, like the “Author and Finisher of the faith.” Still, there’s a price for Americans to pay as well. The materialism, narcissism, commercialism – a host of “principalities and powers” – tempts us, mocks us, to subtly subdue us. I’m not sure which is the most devastating: to pay for your faith in blood, or be otherwise ignored and dismissed by your culture.
The church is not calling the shots anymore, if we ever were. Now we're just trying to hold our own, to stand firm, keep our story straight, and our values clear. We're going to have to be more intentional about who we are, and what we can feasibly do; so we can provide our people the equipment they need to discern the true from the false, to enable them to think for themselves and “stand up for Jesus,” when that’s our only option. Jesus recognized that the “children of this age” will co-opt the soft-minded, who have no compelling vision other than self-protection. People without the armor Paul recommended are vulnerable to onslaughts.
When the astronauts went to the moon, they wore specially designed suits that cost a quarter of a million each. Without them, they would have frozen or suffocated from the lack of oxygen, or floated helplessly in the low gravity of the moon. They needed special equipment to accomplish their mission in an alien environment. So with Christians, on a special mission for God in hostile territory. The Lord provides six pragmatic ways to defend ourselves: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes that move us forward with the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation. There is one offensive weapon: the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
To not take advantage of the spiritual resources available to us would be like the astronauts trying to breathe on the moon without their space suits. Those whose lives are fortified with such forces will not go down in the battle of life. They will go forward in victory in spite of their defeats. So let’s pray for all of us. And pray for me, that I may be faithful in proclaiming “the mystery of the gospel,” without any clues, but faithful in attempting to equip the saints. You're gonna need it.
Prayer 1st Sunday of Lent 09:
The world is so much with us that we gauge our wealth by property owned, money amassed, securities held, people impressed. And fall short of how rich we really are in terms of life’s intangibles: the lift of a loving voice, the warmth of a mate’s confidence, the strength that comes from accepted sorrow, the excitement of a shared purpose. Most of all for the faith that lights our path; for whatever is in us that urges us to call Thee “Father.” And for comforting those who mourn, for healing the afflicted, delivering the captives and bringing hope to those in despair. For bending low to meet the needs of our people and surrounding them with tender forgiveness.
We praise Thee for sending us Jesus. And his encouraging Spirit, who continues to guide us and inspire us to greater service, and makes us bold to declare our faith; fearless in facing our adversaries. “For that which is in us is stronger than that which is in the world.” Renew our spiritual core in this worship. Keep us faithful in the study of the scriptures, disciplined in prayer, courageous in mission. Equip us with “the whole armor of God, so that we may stand against the wiles of the devil.” Amen. |
